Rackspace What-TheheckPaper 0315 RED

8/18/2019 Rackspace What-TheheckPaper 0315 RED

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WHITE PAPER

AbstractChoosing and building a Microsoft Private Cloud is just the first

step. Once you have the Microsoft® Cloud Platform infrastructure

up and running, then you have to figure out what you’re going to do

with it and how you’re going to monitor and manage all of theresources. This white paper examines how businesses can leverage

the benefits of a Microsoft Private Cloud by using Rackspace to

host and manage their Microsoft® Cloud Platform environment.

Choosing Microsoft® Cloud Platform as your cloud computing

platform is the first step to creating a scalable self-service portal for

managing your cloud IT infrastructure. Now that you have a Microsoft

Private Cloud, though, you have a number of other questions to

address: What do I do with this? Is configuring self-service a chore?Can I monitor the cost of the cloud services? In a nutshell — what are

you going to do with this Microsoft Private Cloud?

Let’s take a closer look at some of the primary tasks and functions

you’ll need to consider for your Microsoft Private Cloud.

Enable self-serviceTo make effective use of your Microsoft Cloud Platform, you need a

self-service portal which allows application owners to provision anddeploy the necessary cloud infrastructure. The technical steps to

set-up the self-service portal can be found in Microsoft’s Cloud

Platform documentation, but it’s not something you have to worry

about when you leverage the expertise of a managed cloud

provider like Rackspace — they configure Windows Azure Pack for

its customers, so the self-service portal is available by default. At a

high level, though, the more practical aspects that every business

should consider are:

• Defne what the standardized service oerings will be

• Agree on the needed inormation to ulfll a request

• Determine who sends the inormation and who approves

the requests

To make effective

use of your

Microsoft Cloud

Platform, you needa self-service

portal which allows

application owners

to provision and

deploy the

necessary cloud

infrastructure.


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Federating Your Microsoft® Cloud PlatformBusinesses need to be able to collaborate effectively—both within

geographically dispersed elements of the company and with external

vendors and partners. Efficient collaboration requires federating

Microsoft Cloud Platform resources with other private and publiccloud infrastructures.

Microsoft Cloud Platform has tools available to simplify and stream-

line the process of federation.

• Federation with external private cloud

Federation between a data center and a Microsoft Cloud

Platform is facilitated through network gateways that enable

the two to connect. The interconnection of the two environ-ments forms a hybrid cloud environment that can be used by

services and applications and accessed by users.

• Federation with external Microsoft Azure cloud

Microsoft Private Cloud also allows the cloud infrastructure to be

federated with an external Microsoft Azure cloud environment.

The result is a shared hybrid cloud environment that provides

access to services and applications from the public Internet.

The concept of cloud federation raises the question of the differ-

ences between private and public cloud infrastructures. There are

both advantages and limitations to both private and public clouds,

but a private cloud provides a couple distinct benefits that most

businesses appreciate.

Hosted private cloud vs. Public cloud

• Private clouds provide better security and privacy. The physical

infrastructure and cloud resources, including network assets anddata storage are dedicated exclusively to your company. Public

cloud platforms pool resources and share the cloud infrastruc-

ture between customers. A public cloud platform may violate

security and data protection compliance requirements, and

exposes applications and data to more risk of compromise

or exposure.

Microsoft Cloud

Platform has

tools available to

simplify andstreamline the

process of

federation.


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WHITE PAPER

• Because the private cloud resources belong exclusively to your

organization you can set the subscription allocations and costs.

Public cloud platforms offer generic services and applications

that can be utilized on a pay-per-use basis, but a private cloud

offers much greater customization and flexibility to select thebest resources to meet the business need.

Take Advantage of Software-Defined NetworkingSotware-defned networking (SDN) rees your servers and

applications from the limits of physical networking. Routers,

switches, servers, applications, and every other element of your

cloud environment are abstracted from the physical network,

which provides much greater flexibility and agility.

SDN lets you maximize operational efciency by automating

network configuration and management based on the needs of the

individual applications and the workload at any given time. SDN can

dynamically scale, load balance, or reroute applications to ensure

optimal performance.

Messaging ServicesThe Service Bus feature of Windows Azure Pack enables reliable

messaging between distributed applications. You can connect otherapps running on Azure, or apps running in an on-premise data center,

or both. Service Bus also allows you to connect your cloud apps and

services with household appliances, sensors, and mobile devices.

Service Bus is built on cloud resources so it is reliable and scalable.

It can scale quickly to cope with spikes in demand, and is capable of

communicating with millions of devices simultaneously. Service Bus

is a powerful tool that offers limitless possibilities for what you can

do with your Microsoft Private Cloud.

Database as a Service (DBaaS) and its advantagesDatabase as a Service is a means o giving end users — applications

owners, developers, etc- the ability to request and provision data-

base engine components in a self-service manner. The Microsoft

Cloud Platorm stack oers DBaaS services capable o hosting both

Software-defined

networking frees

your servers

and applicationsfrom the limits

of physical

networking.


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WHITE PAPER

Microsoft SQL and MySQL databases. It is also worth noting that

some private cloud services do not provide this option.

Taking Advantages of DBaaS

Many applications and services rely on a backend database of somesort. Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) separates responsibility or

traditional database administrative functions and removes the need

to employ a dedicated database administrator (DBA). DBaaS enables

application developers to simply call a database service when

needed without having to consider the database itself.

The database is maintained, upgraded, backed up and managed by

the DBaaS provider. From the Microsot Cloud Platorm or application

developer perspective, the DBaaS database is just there, and it willseamlessly scale to meet the demands of the application. There are

a number o benefts to using a DBaaS, including:

• A DBaaS eliminates the need to understand programming or

write backend code when developing Web applications thereby

speeding up the entire process

• Application developers can ocus on developing apps and other

solutions using the set templates provided by DBaaS.

Not all private clouds oer a Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS)

capability, but you can leverage DBaaS with a Microsot Private

Cloud hosted and managed by Rackspace.

Website as a Service and taking advantage of itWebsite-as-a-Service (WaaS) is another tool available to help

customers streamline business and stay focused on what they do

best. WaaS enables customers and application developers to utilizea Website as a resource or publishing platform without having to

invest in the website backend or understand how to develop a

website. Windows Azure Pack provides businesses with simple

templates to build and deploy websites built on WordPress, Drupal,

and other popular Web platforms at the push of a button.

Database-as-a-

Service separates

responsibility

for traditionaldatabase

administrative

functions and

removes the need

to employ a

dedicated database

administrator.


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WHITE PAPER

WaaS allows you to set up a website at the push of a button, and

leave the maintenance and upkeep to somebody else. The WaaS

administrators are responsible for making sure the website is

maintained and up to date. Using a WaaS gives businesses access

to more advanced website features and capabilities without havingto learn Web development or hire a professional Web developer. It

also offers powerful tools to monitor website activity and measure

valuable metrics that can be used to refine the website over time.

Automation and speed to marketMicrosoft Cloud Platform is an ideal platform for optimizing the

processes involved delivering goods and services to your customers.

The various applications that make up Microsoft System Center

include a variety of tools and services you can use to automateroutine or repetitive tasks.

Leveraging Microsoft Private Cloud to automate the routine tasks

and functions that can be automated frees up valuable resources to

be allocated to more important tasks that can’t be replicated with

cloud tools. Automation also helps to streamline workflow so

business is conducted more efficiently — resulting in products or

goods being developed and delivered to customers faster.

Rackspace Private Cloud powered by Microsoft®Let Rackspace do the heavy lifting for you. Every Rackspace data

center in the United States supports the Microsoft Cloud Platform —

including Microsoft Hyper-V, System Center, Windows Server, and

Windows Azure Pack with its web-based interface, enabling user

self-service. Rackspace can deploy and manage your entire Microsoft

Private Cloud environment so you can focus on your business.

Rackspace is a Microsoft Cloud OS Network Gold Certified Partner,and a four-time Microsoft Hosting Partner of the Year. With

hundreds of Microsoft Certified Professionals and cloud specialists

that have extensive expertise in Microsoft applications – it runs the

largest Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint environments outside

of Microsoft itself.

Microsoft Cloud

Platform is an

ideal platform

for optimizingthe processes

involved

delivering goods

and services to

your customers.


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WHITE PAPER

A Rackspace Managed Private Cloud provides customers with a

complete package. Rackspace has teams of cloud experts who do

nothing but live and breathe cloud infrastructure. They have in-

depth knowledge and experience with Microsoft servers and appli-

cations, and they understand what it takes to build, deploy, monitor,manage, and maintain a Microsoft Private Cloud.

A Rackspace Microsoft Private Cloud gives you the enhanced secu-

rity of a single-tenant environment with physically isolated network,

compute, and storage layers, and the cloud experts to proactively

monitor and maintain the health of your private cloud 24x7x365.

You get flexible guest OS management, which means you can

enable or disable guest OS support on your virtual machines based

on your needs, and monitoring, backup, troubleshooting, andantivirus. You also get the scalability and availability of the

Microsoft Cloud Platform and can scale to thousands of nodes

with the Windows Azure Portal, with built-in features such as live

migration and failover clustering for up to 64 nodes.

Unlike some cloud providers, Rackspace specializes in managed

cloud. Beyond the data center infrastructure, Rackspace also pro-

vides optimized platforms and a team of experts to run it all. Let

Rackspace help you architect, build, and operate your MicrosoftPrivate Cloud environment. Your company deserves a Microsoft

Private Cloud supported by Rackers who are there to make it work

for you, and backed by Fanatical Support. n

Tony Bradley is a respected authority on technology. He is Editor-in-

Chief of TechSpective.net. He has authored or co-authored a

number of books, including Unified Communications for Dummies,

Essential Computer Security, and PCI Compliance. He has been a

CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) for over12 years, and he has been recognized by Microsoft as an MVP (Most

Valuable Professional) in Windows and Windows security for 9

consecutive years. — See more at: http://bradleystrategygroup.com/

about/who-we-are/#sthash.wkosI3sg.dpuf

Unlike somecloud providers,

Rackspace

specializes in

managed cloud.

http://bradleystrategygroup.com/about/who-we-are/%23sthash.wkosI3sg.dpufhttp://bradleystrategygroup.com/about/who-we-are/%23sthash.wkosI3sg.dpufhttp://bradleystrategygroup.com/about/who-we-are/%23sthash.wkosI3sg.dpufhttp://bradleystrategygroup.com/about/who-we-are/%23sthash.wkosI3sg.dpuf


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WHITE PAPER

This whitepaper is for informational purposes only and is provided “AS IS.” The

information set forth is intended as a guide and not as a step-by-step process,

and does not represent an assessment of any specific compliance with laws or

regulations or constitute advice. We strongly recommend that you engage

additional expertise in order to further evaluate applicable requirements for yourspecific environment.

Rackspace and Fanatical Support are either registered service marks or service

marks of Rackspace US, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Third-party trademarks and tradenames appearing in this document are the

property of their respective owners. Such third-party trademarks have been

printed in caps or initial caps and are used for referential purposes only. We do

not intend our use or display of other companies’ tradenames, trademarks, orservice marks to imply a relationship with, or endorsement or sponsorship of us

by, these other companies.
http://www.rackspace.com/

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Rackspace What-TheheckPaper 0315 RED